
Lewis Hamilton took his place alongside Formula One legend, Juan Manuel Fangio, after being crowned F1 world champion for a fifth time. The Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport Team driver finished fourth in a spectacular Mexican Grand Prix, where he scored the necessary points to secure the title with two races to spare.
Emotional Lewis celebrated by doing donuts in his F1 W09 EQ Power+ Silver Arrow before hugging each member of his Silver Arrows team and thanking them for their efforts. It has been a difficult season for the British racing driver, as the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport Team had a tight battle with Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel, and Lewis was quick to praise the work from the 900-strong workforce at the team's HQ in Brackley, England.
Lewis said: "Right now, this doesn't feel real. It feels like I am going to wake up. I don't know if it is ever going to kick in. It hasn't kicked in right now. I hope it kicks in soon. It has been such a difficult year. A tough battle with lots of hard work. To raise the bar from last season has been tough mentally and I have to work hard to make sure I have the right balance in my life. Somehow, I managed to find that balance and that flow and had one of the best championships of my career.
"I have always had this ability to drive ever since I was young but I have been trying to raise the bar. Through the year there was a lot of testing times for us, even on weekends where we didn't have the package and then came away with that belief within the team that we could come away with something good, we'd come away with wins even though we weren't the quickest.
"It took some special laps, some special moments within the car, I could re-live those moments all the time. Some of those experiences this year were really magical.